Soldier charged with stealing a bicycle

Hertfordshire Mercury, 11th December 1915

Transcript

At Hertford  Borough Sessions on Thursday, Gunner Albert Peverell, of the 3/4th East Anglian Brigade, R.F.A., was charged with stealing a bicycle, valued at £10, the property of Sergt. Lindell, of the Herts. Yeomanry, on December 6.  Sergt. Lindell stated that on Monday he put his bicycle in the guard room at the Yeomanry headquarters in St Andrew Street, and when he went for it at 6 p.m. it had gone.  P.S. Harry Wright, stated that at 2.30 on December 7 the prisoner was brought to the police station by the military on a charge of breaking out of barracks whilst under arrest and stealing a bicycle.  When charged with the theft he replied ‘I didn’t mean to steal it.  I thought it was Bombardier Messenger’s bicycle, and he lends it to me.’  Gunner Charles Shephens said he was in the guard room when the prisoner took the bicycle and told him that the Yeomanry Sergt. had given him permission to use it.  Bombardier Frederick Messenger said he had never lent the prisoner his bicycle.  Sergt. Housden, of the City Police, St Albans, said he arrested the prisoner at his home in Grosvenor Road, St Albans.  The prisoner had the bicycle and was just lighting the lamp to return to Hertford.  The prisoner said he was under open arrest at the time he took the bicycle to go to see his wife and children,  one of the children being ill.  He had no intention of stealing it, and didn’t think there was any harm in borrowing it.  There were several bicycles about and the soldiers were in the habit of using one another’s machines to go on errands and take messages.  The Bench decided to discharge the prisoner.

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